Finding beauty in our chaos

Tumbleweed

We are 6 days into National Poetry Month now. I’ve been inspired to do a few revisions to some of my older pieces, as well as to read some of my favorites – like The Highwayman. I thought it would be nice to share a poem that I had written years ago now, when I was still in high school, but revised and finished just a couple of years ago. Isn’t it interesting how the wisdom of adulthood can allow us to return to those childhood feelings and polish them?

She sits alone in a parked car
at the edge of a field-
music softly playing-
and watches the rootless tumbleweeds
dancing with the wind;
mini tornadoes on an aimless path.
She understands that they are seeds
of something softer;
though they are barbed-
like feathered rosebushes
that will easily cut the skin.
She wonders if her unhappiness
could be a seed of something more?
Will she be like them-
survivors? Hardy plants that will inherit the earth
when all the others are gone?
In their isolation
she can see herself …
Does she, too, hold the same hidden beauty inside?
Can she ever allow the world to see
her own matchless charm?

Russian Thistle by Wind Cave National Park – the plant that becomes a tumbleweed (photo courtesy of http://www.nps.gov)